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I ended up just making alot of stuff I had on hand, I wanted to get a handle on the tech. I had a rib left from a standing rib roast, turned out ok but I didn't char it enough with the torch, a custard which tasted really pure , and rich, salmon which was nice, and from egullet an egg cooked at 75C for 15 mins that was pretty good as well. I am going to grab some flank steak for this weekend and hopefully I can run across some crab legs.

The cheaper the better. If works properly.
Poly science[or circulator kind of machines] tends to work little louder than lets ay SV Supreme, cause it pumps water all the time during operation.
Biggest flaw of that system is the fact that heating element is not on the bottom, is on the side, so naturally you need help to circulate the heated water - otherwise you would have cold spots in the bucket. Thats why you need pump, which can make some noise.
I ended up with SV Magic over the Supreme. Its more versatile and I can choose the size for my bucket.

I have a whole wild goose in the freezer. I want to break it down into primal parts and sous vide it then crisp it in a skillet when done. I have a good PID and just need a16 - 20 quart slow cooker/electric roaster. There are other cuts and fish and mollusks I'd like to try like octopus.

We do a lot of sous vide at the restaurant. between the 2 brands we use i recommend the old trusty polyscience.
we also have 2 different brands of vacuum sealers both really well made but i like the KOCH vacuum sealers for their quiet operation and certain features.

for obvious reasons i will not refer as to what brands are involved but these are conclusions on a side by side comparisons during heavy intervals in a busy high end kitchen during the past 1 year.
i would like to say though that if you want o buy a used machine to be very sure where it came from and how it was taken care for.A circulator used in a bio lab is a bio hazard simply because you do not know what types of applications it was used for some of them can erode heating element and bond with the materials during long extended sessions. It is best to avoid them for safety reasons but i could say that a great number from the restaurants that pioneered sous vide possibly started with used units or used pre owned units of unknown origins .
The other very important thing to remember is that since these units can be used with regular tap water and require regular maintenance ,de scaling and sanitation of the circulators in equal regular intervals. we do ours every 12 to 15 days or so depending of circumstances.in an absolute perfect world these units are supposed to be used with distilled water

Another thing to point out is to always make sure you are keeping vacuum sealers cleaned and sanitized and also to change oil in the pump every 500 hours of operation or so and maintain the sealers any attached wiring to those and any parts attached to the vacuum chamber as these usually tend to fail more often because of abuse .i have seen a vacuum sealer that has greatly been neglected in a previous restaurant that was not that old and the pump went on it because of that oil change neglect. It also can affect the capacity of the actual pump reaching maximum vacuum --30 mbars- meaning that the max vacuum capacity is not achieved altogether or it actually takes longer for it to be achieved .